All Siteimprove services can be accessed through the same online platform, and using multiple services provided by Siteimprove also makes sense financially with increasing discounts being awarded.

One council that has seen the benefit of multiple Siteimprove services is Tandridge District Council

Background

Tandridge District Council has determinedly followed a strategy to put into practice high quality web management.

The Council’s priorities were and still are, to have web management tools that give accurate information, are easy to use and cost effective.

Link checking, spelling and accessibility

Tandridge had used link checking services since it redeveloped its site in 2006.

In 2007 the Council decided to look into different packages to provide a more comprehensive link checking, spelling and accessibility checking service.

One of the products Tandridge reviewed was SiteCheck, which offered a free 14 day trial on the whole of the Council’s site. To use just as a customer would.

The free trial was quickly set up by the Siteimprove team who provided a personal walkthrough of SiteCheck features and answered any questions as they came up during the trial. (Tandridge soon discovered Siteimprove offers free trials for all of its products.)

Very quickly it was clear SiteCheck provided a much more productive and user friendly experience than the product the Council had been using.

It was easy to use, as well as easy to find and fix links and spelling mistakes. Online reports clearly highlighted the precise location of the errors, both on the web page, as well as in the source code.

The accessibility module really helped maintain the Council’s web pages to W3C standards too.

Most important, it was affordable and a real time-saver given our low level of web resources.

Giuseppina Valenza, Communications Manager

Web monitoring

An extra benefit was that SiteAlarm, which tells the Council if the site is available, was bundled up free with SiteCheck. Tandridge did not have anything that monitored uptime before, so it was a great additional resource.

Using the Siteimprove Web Management Dashboard, the Council can compare the site’s performance with the average in the region and in the UK. SiteAlarm also monitors the responsiveness of the home page on the site which is very useful to know over time.

Website statistics

In 2008 the Council reviewed its web statistics package, which had become quite expensive.

The Council trialled Siteimprove’s hosted website statistic service, SiteAnalyze, over a full 30 days and decided to buy. It quickly proved cost effective and easy to use, while meeting all the information needs of the Council.

Similar to SiteCheck, SiteAnalyze creates customised website usage reports. With the automatic scheduling feature offered by SiteAnalyze, reports can be scheduled to run - daily, weekly, or even monthly and sent to any email address.

Search engine

By this time Tandridge District Council was recognised in Socitm’s Better connected 2009 report as being one of the top 20 council sites in the UK. However, the Council could see there was scope to improve on the search results users were getting.

Tandridge went down the tried and trusted route of trialling a Siteimprove product. This time it was SearchImprove.

The 30 day trial was tailored to the Council’s needs and it quickly showed improved search results and better features from the moment the trial started.

In the run up to the launch date, the site threw up a number of challenges because of its construction, and Siteimprove worked very closely with Tandridge’s Communications Manager to make sure it was completely ready on the day.

Conclusion

Tandridge District Council’s website has benefited tremendously from the services provided by Siteimprove.

With an organised and easy-to-access online platform, Siteimprove’s products are a huge asset to the few people who are involved in monitoring the website and keeping it free of mistakes. The products being hosted makes life easy

Tandridge is also a big advocate of Siteimprove’s customer support:

I have always found Siteimprove to be extremely helpful and attentive. We have a friendly account manager who is always easily contactable for any issue – big or small.

There is also an excellent technical support system where queries can be submitted via email and we can be confident we will have a very swift response, usually within a few hours.

Giuseppina Valenza, Communications Manager